


his face all red

by henwens



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Carmilla AU, Dream Sequences, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-27
Updated: 2014-12-12
Packaged: 2018-02-27 03:55:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2678099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/henwens/pseuds/henwens
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A light flared on in the corner of the room, illuminating the figure. Golden curls, his face all red—</p><p>Grantaire looked away.</p><p>(very loosely based off Carmilla by Le Fanu as well as the new webseries adaptation)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part One

**Author's Note:**

> a few warnings: though no real harm comes to the characters, Grantaire's dreams are frightening and often graphic. 
> 
> There are also quite a few conversations carried on in French, as well as a lot of the dialogue in the dreams. Translations for some of the more dense quotes have been provided, but not for everything, and rather than looking them up as you go along I would suggest simply reading on. Context clues will make your life very easy.
> 
> This was an odd endeavor and mostly written for personal pleasure, so thank you so much if you decide to take a chance in reading it. I hope that you won't regret it!

The man's fist met Grantaire's jaw like a lead pipe. He fell heavily to the ground, willing his body to get up, but before he could the ref called the match. Grantaire slammed his fist against the dirty ground and set his teeth. A metallic tang filled his mouth and his tongue probed the bloody space left behind by one of his teeth. 

"Sorry about that, mate," the man with the fists outstretched one of his hands apologetically. "Didn't mean to take a tooth out there."

"It happens," Grantaire grumbled, spitting out a mouthful of blood. "C'est la vie."

"Vous parlez française?"

Grantaire laughed. Was it so uncommon now that a young man spoke French? Sure, in these parts he was surrounded by intellectuals who practiced their English, Latin, German daily-- but heaven forbid someone let one of the Romance languages slip. Sure, Grantaire spoke English to fit in, but his native tongue still slipped out whenever it suited him.

"Vous êtes de ici, non? Is that why you laughed?" The man scrubbed a hand over his shorn head. "Sorry if that was a stupid question. I can never tell around here, everyone around here seems to be from somewhere else. It's cool to meet a local. And again, sorry about your face. Will you let me pay for the damages?"

Grantaire thought about taking this man's money and grimaced. He had lost fair and square, and he wasn't one to whine. He wasn't about to fork over money for the replacement tooth though, not when he still had to pay rent. "How about a job? I'd rather let you pay me for a job well done rather than just take the money. It was a fair fight, after all."

"A job, eh?" The man chuckled. "As it turns out, I may have just the thing."

* * *

 

When Grantaire first laid eyes on the slender figure and the mess of blonde curls, he believed his new employer was actually  _une femme_ , a woman. Not that he would have a problem with that, but he thought Bahorel would have told him first. When the figure turned around, though, Grantaire could see past the golden curls framing the smooth feminine face, to the sharp edges of eyes and the downturn of lips that definitely read male. He blinked in surprise.

"Vous êtes la nouvelle recrue de Bahorel, non?”1 The man’s voice was as gilded as his hair. Grantaire collected himself and nodded once.

"He told me you had a job for me. Some kind of security detail?"

“Qu'est-ce que vous faites normalement?”2 the man asked, suspicion tingeing his words. Grantaire was surprised that he was still carrying on in French, and decided to return in kind.

“Je suis habituellement debout sur quelqu'un qui est saignée à mes pieds.”3

The grin that flickered over the man's face was something strange, evil, and altogether too magnificent to behold. Grantaire found that he could not look away.

“Do you fight often?”

“Yes." He swore to Bahorel he would not lie.

“Do you win often?”

Grantaire smirked. He liked this man. 

“Dois-je gagne souvent? Je suis né souterraine et je me suis battu pour mon premier repas. J’ai apporté beaucoup d'hommes devant moi et je serais heureux de le faire pour vous. Pour la travail.” 4

Grantaire hastily corrected himself, but he was sure by the turn of that red mouth that his slip had been noted.

“Très bien,” the leader said. “Welcome to the revolution.”

* * *

 

By the third day, Grantaire was still unsure why exactly he was here. All he knew was that he was getting paid by the hour to stand at Enjolras's side and watch for anything suspicious as the intrepid student made speeches to a congregation of youthful faces. 

It seemed like the standard rant, and Enjolras truly knew how to turn a phrase to invoke the most amount of cheering. Grantaire's ears still rang that night as he crept into bed. After a few days of this, Bahorel said he would be good to go. That suited Grantaire just fine. He'd never been one for revolutions and rebellion; he knew the world needed fixing, but he barely knew how to fix himself. 

As he closed his eyes and sank into the nearly-flat pillow, he thought he heard his name whispered from somewhere out in the darkness. Shuddering against the sudden cold that filled the room, he sank into oblivion.

The figure was red like the sunset, like the sudden bloom of poppies, like the decay that came after. It lurked in the shadows of his room, and Grantaire struggled to get up, to escape. He was frozen, though, and could not move.

Golden liquid bled out from the shadowy figure, creeping across the rickety floorboards to the cot that Grantaire lay on. When the first droplets hit him, he hissed; they burned. It was as though he were being encased in a gilded prison. The figure slunk closer and he tried to scream, but the liquid had already filled his mouth and he struggled to speak against the solidifying gold.

“ _Incroyant,”_  the voice that filled his mind was too terrible for words. Grantaire felt himself transported into the darkness, the gold encasing disappearing in a flash. He found he could breathe again.

The figure wrapped itself around him, dripping hot blood onto Grantaire’s chest and arms. He shakily reached around and embraced the figure; it felt only right. Whatever was happening here was utterly out of his control.

“ _Tu crois en moi_.”

With the order, a light flared on from the corner of the room, illuminating the figure. Golden curls, his face all red—

Grantaire looked away.

* * *

 

Grantaire woke with a start the next morning, and glanced over at the half-empty bottle of vodka on his bedside table. He glared fuzzily at it.

“That’s enough out of you,” he said, depositing it in the wastebasket. He began to get ready for the day—he was meeting the  _Amis_ , as they called themselves, at a rally later. Once he had thrown on his jacket, he looked back at the bottle sitting in the trash and plucked it out again, placing it on his bureau. He had spent part of his earnings on it, and he really hated to put things to waste. He would finish it later that day, hopefully long before he fell to sleep.

_What was that though?_

He’d had nightmares as a kid, lots of them. He’d been scolded by many different foster parents for wetting the bed in his panic, or waking up the entire household with his screams. He’d thought he had long outgrown them, though, especially now that he had left the system.

It hadn’t been any ordinary nightmare, though. The rush, the fear he had felt—it almost left him wanting more.

He shook his head at how ridiculous he’d become. Self-medicating was one thing, but wishing for dreams like those? That really was too much.

Tying the laces of his boot, Grantaire stepped out the door to face the day.

* * *

 

“You’re early today,” the one with dark curls, Courfeyrac, snickered. Grantaire shrugged in reply.

“Got nothing better to do. Decided to come down here and maybe learn for once what it is your organization does.”

“Isn’t that adorable, Courf?” the other one, Combferre, said. “All this time and he has no idea what he’s even a part of. I almost feel sorry that he’s wrapped up in this with us now.”

“I’m not sorry,” Grantaire said, bristling. “Just curious.”

The two exchanged a glance and nodded back at him, chastened. “Well, all you really need to know is that things around here need to change. We’ve got to start somewhere, and we figure this campus is a good enough place to start. We’ve all got our reasons for being involved, but the real ringleader here is Enjolras, of course.”

“What is with him?”

Courfeyrac laughed. “It’s like he was born to do this kind of thing.”

“No,” Combferre said. “It’s like he’s been doing it since he was born.”

“That’s what I said,” Courfeyrac argued.

“No, it’s different.” Combferre gave him a look that silenced the mop-headed one.

“We can’t really say more,” he continued. “Just that it’s good that you’re here. We’ve gotten a lot of complaints about the noise we’ve been making on campus, but some of them are slightly more serious than others. Bahorel’s been getting spooked, so it was nice of you to help him out.”

“Yeah, well,” Grantaire considered what they’d just told him. “He owes me a tooth."

When Enjolras gave his rousing speech that night, Grantaire tried (and failed) to listen in. It was just difficult to watch someone with so much passion, when Grantaire could barely muster up a smile if a friendly stranger asked him for the time.

When he returned to his flat that night, he found the bottle of vodka and drank himself back into oblivion. Just before he passed out, he could have sworn he saw a shadow dance across the wall next to his bed, with curling tendrils that beckoned him forward into the darkness.

* * *

 

_I N C R O Y A N T_

The letters burned like a brand on his body, the fingers working their way across his skin leaving angry red marks where they touched him. The figure had returned to him, and Grantaire could not help but feel his heart quicken when the arms wrapped around him again.

“’M not,” he whispered into the red flesh. He pressed his lips together tightly but when his tongue flickered out briefly he could taste the mixture of metallic blood and salt that clung to this creature's skin-- if that's what you could call it. When Grantaire struggled in its arms he could sometimes feel scales, sometimes thick matted fur, and sometimes a human's hot flesh-- always dripping in blood. There were no wounds though, on either of them, just a burning sensation that was now too familiar to Grantaire.

Surely this was the devil.

“ _Je ne suis pas un incroyant_.”

In response, the figure bit him—bit him!—and Grantaire could not help but chuckle through the fear.

“I will believe,” he said. “Si c’est ce que vous voulez, je croirai!”

The vice-like grip around his body tightened until he could not feel a thing, and then everything disappeared. Slowly the icy chill of feeling returned to his body, and as he lay on his bed he realized he could not even remember waking up.

* * *

 

Grantaire returned to the meeting the next morning with a rejuvenated passion.

"Someone's in high spirits today, eh?" Bahorel nudged him.

"I've gone mad with lack of sleep, I'd say," Grantaire replied. He tapped the side of his head. "Weird dreams."

Curiosity flickered over Bahorel's face. "What do you mean?"

"Well I won't even remember closing my eyes, which honestly isn't that odd for me, but the next thing I know there will be this presence in the room with me, a sort of suffocating darkness, and I'll wake up the next morning feeling like I haven't slept at all."

Bahorel shrugged. "That is weird. I remember when I first got this job I had a lot of trouble sleeping, but nothing like that. It's probably just stress. If you need something for that, just talk to Joly over there. He has a stash of pot in his sock drawer for 'medical' use. I'm sure he'll be happy to prescribe you some."

Grantaire laughed, but felt a lot more unsure than he did when he walked in today. He couldn't shake the sense that these people were hiding something from him.

He turned away from Bahorel and caught the gaze of a pair of black piercing eyes, cold and unforgivable and eerily reminiscent of something that had been haunting Grantaire for a while now.

Enjolras turned away from him quickly and went back to shaking hands, but Grantaire could not look away.

* * *

 

Grantaire was given a few mercifully restful nights of sleep, even without the aid of Joly's special prescription. Bahorel had told him he was free to go after a week of work, but Grantaire was too wrapped up in the cause to leave now. The threats against Enjolras's life were still out there, and for once in his life he felt the need to see this thing through til the end. So he promised to help provide some extra security, at least until the threats stopped coming.

As it turned out, though, the day after he agreed to stay on, they received another threat, this one a little too knowledgeable about certain aspects of Enjolras's daily schedule. The Amis were thrown into a panic, trying to find a safe space to put Enjolras up for the night, at least until Bahorel and one of their other security guys, Feuilly, could locate the source of the threat. Somehow, they all came to the same conclusion-- Grantaire's place.

"Je ne pense pas,"5 Enjolras grumbled under his breath, and Grantaire couldn't figure out if Enjolras still didn't understand he spoke French or just thought he couldn't hear him. 

"It's not a problem for me," Grantaire said, though he bristled at the thought of spending a night of silence with this man. Since their first conversation, Enjolras hadn't said a word to him, and Grantaire even thought the man hated him, though he couldn't imagine what he had done to offend him. Perhaps it was showing up drunk on the first day of work?

Regardless of either of their concerns, Enjolras ended up walking home that night with Grantaire. Grantaire barely had enough room in his small flat for the rickety bed frame and old mattress he slept on, but he found a futon in the closet (probably left behind by an old roommate) and laid it out for himself.

“You can take my bed,” he told Enjolras. He wasn’t about to let his employer sleep on the floor. The man looked unsure, but after a brief moment he nodded. He’d probably weighed the argument that would unfold if he declined the offer. Grantaire shook his head a little at how odd his life was now and curled up on the thin mattress.

Just before he closed his eyes, he heard Enjolras’s voice snake down from the bed above him.

“Thank you for this. I know you’re not a believer in the cause.”

Grantaire tucked an arm under his head. Was this where all the hostility was coming from? He felt his eyes slip shut.

“Je n’ai jamais dit cela.”6

* * *

The beast visited him again that night, crawling over his body as he slept, clamping down on his arms like a burning vice and pinning them to the mattress. Grantaire tried to scream but something clamped down on his throat as well, a set of jaws with teeth that did not tear into his flesh but threatened to, and as the room stilled around him there was only one voice in his ear: “ _Vous croyez en moi_.”

Grantaire thought about the razor-like fangs that hovered just barely over his vocal cords and made a decision. “Oui, oui,” he whispered, his voice scratchy but his throat unharmed. The vice loosened enough to let the breath escape from his lips in short gasps. Suddenly, the beast was gone.

Grantaire thought this meant he was awake. He propped himself up on his elbows and looked around the empty room, until he locked eyes on something crouching in the dark corner. The shadow extended itself until it stood like a man, turned its ashen gray face towards Grantaire, an eerie white smile the only visible trace of humanity. Grantaire saw flashes of gold like a princess's enchanted hair in a fairy tale. He saw flashes of red like the gullet of a wolf, stalking him through a forest. He saw the figure covered in ashy soot, like he’d just been burned at the stake, like Grantaire was going to burn with him—

“Grantaire!”

Grantaire was being shaken, the grip on his arms harsh like the beast's but cool, comforting, the soft flesh of a thumb caressing his too-warm skin. He opened his eyes and met Enjolras’s gaze.

“A nightmare?” The man said, and Grantaire shook his head.

“I am sorry,” he said, wrestling out of Enjolras’s grasp and sitting up. “It was nothing.”

“It didn’t seem like nothing,” Enjolras said, standing up. “I’ll get you a glass of water.”

Grantaire watched Enjolras walk through the darkness to the door, and hesitate just before opening it. He thought he recognized the gait, the familiar girth of shadow, the judgmental gaze that penetrated through to his very soul. Then Enjolras opened the door and light from the hallway spilled in, shattering the illusion.

“Enjolras—” Grantaire said suddenly, and the man turned to meet him. Grantaire stumbled up from the mattress and strode through the darkness, reaching out frantically for this golden leader, the man he had chosen to follow...

But he was out the door before Grantaire could get to him.

In the light of the hallway, he saw it though. The golden curls, the ashen skin—

And his face all red.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations 
> 
> 1 You’re Bahorel’s new recruit, no?  
> 2 What is it that you do normally?  
> 3 I am usually standing over someone bleeding out at my feet.  
> 4 Do I often win? I was born underground and I fought for my first meal. I have brought  
> many men down before me and I’d be happy to do it for you. For the job.  
> 5 I don’t think so.  
> 6 I never said that.


	2. Part Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this changed direction somewhere along the way! thank you all for being patient, i had to wait for some inspiration with this story but luckily the carmilla finale provided more than enough.
> 
> enjoy~

Grantaire walked with Enjolras back to campus the next morning in silence. Although Enjolras had slipped back to bed after sitting up with Grantaire for a while, Grantaire had not been able to go back to sleep. No words had been exchanged between them, and Enjolras’s eyes were dulled with sleep, but Grantaire watched him alertly until the break of dawn.

He had been so sure last night, of what he’d seen. But perhaps it was just the remnants of fear from the dream that had played with his vision. As he watched Enjolras sleep, the man looked perfectly harmless—even angelic, in the moonlight.

“About last night,” Enjolras said, and Grantaire tensed up. “Thank you.”

“Oh,” Grantaire said. “It wasn’t a problem. I’m sorry you had to… I’m sorry if I woke you.”

“Does that happen often?”

Grantaire chanced a look over at him. It was late November so they were bundled up pretty tightly, and as Grantaire huffed out a breath the icy air crystallized it into a thick smoky cloud. Through the haze, Enjolras looked obscured but not unlovely.

“It’s a recent thing,” he began to explain. “I had nightmares as a kid, but nothing like this. If I’m being honest, it all started with—”

“With me?” Enjolras asked. Grantaire startled.

“Well, I’m not saying there’s a correlation, but…”

“What if I told you there was?”

“What?”

Enjolras stopped suddenly and Grantaire spun on his heel to face him, feeling lost. What did he mean by that? Had he been drugged by this group of odd revolutionaries?

“It… this has happened before,” Enjolras began. “I’d rather not go into specifics on the street, but if you want answers, maybe we could meet somewhere.”

Grantaire weighed his options. “If we’re going to do this, we maybe should have a few drinks as well?”

Enjolras smiled without showing teeth. “Maybe.”

“There’s a bar not far from my place, we passed it a few blocks back. No one will bother us there.”

“Fine,” Enjolras said. Grantaire saw that his face was flushed red, probably from the cold. It made his heartbeat feel slow and sluggish. This man was truly beautiful.

“Bien.”

* * *

 

Enjolras would scarcely look at him the moment they met up with the others, but Grantaire watched him. Enjolras was calm and collected when the other Amis brought up their various concerns, always thorough in his explanations, always passionate in his speech.

Grantaire could not help but remember the red villain that plagued his dreams. What had he seen in Enjolras last night that so convinced him they were the same?

Still, he knew that secrets were being kept from him, and he anxiously waited for answers. 

“Hey,” Bahorel said, sliding over next to him. “How was last night?”

“Weird,” Grantaire said honestly. “Do you have good news?”

“Unfortunately, no,” Bahorel sighed. “Feuilly thinks a group of troublemakers in town is just trying to mess with us, but I’m not so sure. Think you can stand one more night?”

“Definitely,” Grantaire smiled. “If Enjolras doesn’t mind, that is. I get the feeling he doesn’t like me all that much.”

“Don’t worry, we all had to go through that. He’ll warm up to you eventually.” Bahorel shrugged. “I don’t know why he does it for us. He seems so passionate, so intelligent, like he could be a politician rather than someone just trying to rally a small college town around his cause. I get this weird sense that… like he’s lost something before, you know?”

“Hmm,” Grantaire thought about that. He’d never thought about Enjolras losing before.

By the way,” he continued. “Good to see you got that tooth of yours fixed.”

Grantaire laughed at that. He’d gone immediately after he received his first paycheck, wanting these unresolved dental issues out of the way. He’d almost panicked when they put him under, frightened that the beast would come for him even here, but the black haze of anesthesia hid him mercifully from any nightmares.

“Oh, here comes Enjolras now. Promise me, yeah? That you’ll take care of him. It would devastate our cause if we lost him. And… it would devastate us.”

“Yeah,” Grantaire promised. “I’ve never really believed in anything before, but I believe in him, you know?”

“See?” Bahorel said. “Now you’re getting it.

* * *

 

Grantaire and Enjolras headed directly for the bar after the meeting dispersed. Once Grantaire had ordered drinks for the both of them, he explained Bahorel’s request that Enjolras stay the night with Grantaire once more.

“If it’s alright with you, of course.”

“Of course.” Enjolras looked upset. “Although, with what I’m about to tell you, I feel like my presence won’t be welcome.”

“Try me,” Grantaire said, as the bartender handed them their drinks. He took a quick swig and turned his attention back to Enjolras.

“Well,” he said, pushing his drink around on the table. “I suppose I’ll start by telling you about someone I once loved—so similar to you, actually.”

Grantaire began to cough, the sweet burn of alcohol in his throat turning sour.

“This was… years ago, though. Longer than you could possibly imagine.”

Grantaire felt awkward, fell silent. He wasn’t used to talking about matters like love, at times could barely imagine feeling like that for anyone.

“What happened?” He finally asked.

“He died,” Enjolras said quietly. “He died at my side. I had the power to save him, but it would mean pulling him into a life that I had already grown to hate. I don’t… I don’t know how to explain without making it seem like I’m insane.”

Grantaire laughed at that. “Now that’s something I know all about. Don’t spare any details, I already feel like I’m insane not having a clue what goes on when I close my eyes at night.”

“I’m not behind that,” Enjolras said. “I have no idea what is causing your night terrors. But I feel like our meeting might have caused it somehow. And I can tell you that… I’ve seen what you’ve seen. C’est une goule1. ”

“Are you… are you saying we’re haunted?”

“Oui. You see, I made a mistake. And he has tormented me every night since. But when I saw you, the dreams stopped. It is only when you mentioned the nightmare last night that I think… I think it has been transferred to you.”

“But why?”

“We three must be connected somehow. I think… I believe… you have the power to save us. Both of us.”

“Us?”

“Him and… and me.”

“Oh.”

“You see,” Enjolras folded his hands and placed his face down in their cradle. “I am hiding something else.”

“Yeah?”

“I am… I suppose I am what you would call a vampire.”

“A vampire.”

Enjolras looked up and Grantaire saw blonde curls, pale skin, fiery eyes and a red, gaping mouth.

He began to laugh.

“What… pourquoi riez-vous?2?” Enjolras’s anger was righteous. Grantaire downed his drink.

“I’m so fucking relieved,” he explained. “I thought I was losing my mind, and now I find out it’s just the rest of the world that’s gone crazy. This is the best news I’ve gotten in a while.”

“O-Oh,” Enjolras said, a blush coloring his cheeks. “I honestly didn’t expect you to react this way. Don’t you have questions?”

“Honestly, I’ve always thought there was something creepy about you, so this probably answers more questions than it raises.”

“Creepy?” Enjolras scoffed. “Well you’re a drunkard non-believer with a crummy apartment.”

“Yeah,” Grantaire laughed. “Yeah, and I haven’t gotten a good night’s sleep in three weeks. So what are we going to do about it?”

Enjolras stilled, set his face with a stony look. “That’s up to you.”

* * *

 

That night, when Grantaire felt the presence return, he thought of Enjolras and the man he had said this creature once was. He couldn’t see anything remotely human in it; it was just an inky black cat, pacing on padded paws, claws ticking against the wood of the floor and scraping menacingly every so often. Grantaire knew that if he moved suddenly, those claws were going straight for his chest.

“I know what you are,” Grantaire said.

“You know nothing,” a voice whispered in the darkness. It hadn’t come from the cat. Instead, it was disembodied, ghostly, a voice like needles pricking into his spine. Maybe that was what paralyzed him.

“I know you loved him,” he said. “If that’s true, why do you haunt us? It’s been centuries, you need to… move on.”

The voice closed in dangerously as the cat began to yowl, preparing itself to pounce. Fear gripped Grantaire as the voice bit into his ear, “ _move on_?”

Grantaire could almost feel the heat of breath as the voice continued. “I am not here for my sake, but for yours. Danger is on the horizon, and if I were not here to warn you—”

“Well you have, haven’t you?” Grantaire wrestled in the grip, glaring down at the cat. “I will protect Enjolras with my life, so we don’t need you anymore.”

The already-black darkness became even blacker, and Grantaire thought for a brief moment he’d gone truly blind. Then, a glimmer, like the flicker of a candle. A man stood before Grantaire, his face all red. Grantaire saw him for the first time as the mortal he had been in his life, dark brown curls and gargoyle face, dripping with blood from a mystery wound above his hairline.

“Do you swear it?” The man said, and for a moment, Grantaire felt that he was looking in a mirror. How had he ever thought this creature was Enjolras? He saw only himself in it.

“I do.”

“It will mean your ruin.”

“Anything is better than what I’ve got going for me now.”

And as he regained consciousness, he realized that was the truth.

* * *

 

 Weeks passed without incident, and with their shared nightmare gone, Grantaire felt Enjolras drift away from him. He let it happen, thinking back on his promise to the creature, and working with Bahorel to decipher the threat against Enjolras’s life.

They had followed several good leads already, and had come up short every time. The threat was both ever-present and non-existent.

They let things slip.

Which was how the man made it past several Amis unnoticed before pulling a gun on Enjolras in the middle of a rally. Grantaire happened—just happened—to be at his side in that moment, and reacted without thinking.

He dove, felt the impact in his head, saw Enjolras’s face flecked with spots of red. A vision flashed before his eyes again, the memory of all those nightmares culminating in this moment, and he thought he saw Enjolras’s face distort into that of the monster’s. This man, this beautiful man, was always meant to be the downfall of the likes of Grantaire.

In an instant, he saw red, and red, and then everything went black—

* * *

 

And then, Grantaire woke in his own room. For a moment, he thought everything had been just another nightmare.

Then he saw Enjolras at his bedside, and knew something had gone wrong.

“You’re awake,” Enjolras said, his voice tight. He looked so different from the Enjolras that had held him as he lost consciousness; some time must have passed.

“I’m a vampire, now, aren’t I?” Grantaire said. It was funny, but he felt no different. Was this what death did to people?

“You are not,” Enjolras said, getting up from the chair and handing Grantaire a glass of water.

“Well, I’m definitely not craving blood,” he agreed. “I could use some whiskey, though.”

“Not for another week at least. You’re on some pretty heavy medication, courtesy of our in-home doctor.”

Grantaire send a prayer heavenward for Joly and his endless supply of painkillers.

“Not that I'm complaining, but why am I not in the hospital?”

“Don’t be a baby,” Enjolras smiled darkly. “It was only a scratch."

"Wow, your bedside manner is severely lacking." Grantaire observed Enjolras's face; the nervous tic under his eye he often saw at the end of long days, the stray wisps of blonde curls that never stay put, and the red turn of judgmental lips. The ones that told him to join, the ones that told him to stay.

"I thought I’d lost you," Enjolras began. "There was so much blood."

Grantaire turned away. "Did it make you hungry?"

"It made me nervous. I didn’t want to make the same mistake again. But I still didn't want the alternative.” He shifted. “I almost did bite you, you know. You’re question at the start wasn’t far off.”

“What happened after I passed out?”

There was a flash of white amidst the red of Enjolras’s mouth, so quick he almost didn’t notice it. “He won’t be bothering us again. You don’t mess with a vampire and get away with it.”

“Then, the other Amis know?”

Enjolras looked confused. “What do you mean? That I’m a vampire? Oh, they've known all along.”

Grantaire closed his eyes and leaned heavily back into the pillow. “Why was I the last to know?”

“Because you’ve had your own issues to deal with, clearly. We’re going to have to discuss this drinking problem at some point, you know.”

“Says the guy who drinks blood,” he grumbled.

“Very rarely,” Enjolras chuckled. They fell into a comfortable silence.

Finally, Grantaire felt the need to ask. “Do they know about… about the dreams?”

Enjolras’s smile was the kindest Grantaire had ever seen it. “I think we should keep that between us for now. Have you seen anything lately, or is it taken care of?”

“He warned me this would happen,” Grantaire said. “In the last dream. I should have done more to stop this. You could have--”

“You’ve done more than enough.” He hesitated, then took Grantaire’s hand in his own. “Thank you, and I mean that.”

With a quick squeeze, he released it quickly. Grantaire laughed.

“I have a headache,” he said.

“A bullet to the brain will do that. Rest.”

“Alright.” For once, Grantaire didn’t feel like putting up a fight. 

And as he closed his eyes and settled in for the night, he was happily met with pure nothingness.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations  
> 1 It is a ghoul.  
> 2 Why are you laughing?


End file.
